Offered by Franck Baptiste Provence
Precious travel cabinet in ebony veneer inlaid with engraved ivory fillets opening with two front leaves.
The leaves decorated on both sides with geometric reserves and flowered spandrels present full-length portraits of Roman emperors on the front side and bouquets of flowers on the inside. The interior is made up of seven drawers and a central niche that reveals three additional drawers.
The facade of the niche bears a portrait of a helmeted neck brace, with his spear and his shield.
The drawers framed with guilloche strips present small ivory plates finely engraved with pastoral scenes. Rich silver ornamentation, including lions grip knobs and side handles with mascarons. Beautiful quality of very black ebony wood with brown veins. Good state of conservation, small usual restorations. Work from Northern Italy, Milan region around 1620. Dimensions: Height: 48 cm; Width: 54.5cm; Depth: 34 cmOur opinion:
The origin of this type of ebony-veneered cabinet is Dutch but some craftsmen from the Netherlands left around 1600 to work in Italy, among them we can mention Théodore de Voghel employed at the Royal Armory of Naples and who made some small cabinets of this type, some of which are preserved in the San Martino museum of the city.
However, the iconography of our cabinet with its characteristic foliage and has to be compared to Milanese productions.
A true court object, the cabinet no longer calls on a single carpenter, but on ivory engravers, painters and other goldsmiths for the mounts.
The state of conservation of our copy and its preciousness make it a fairly rare object on the market.
Very similar model and from the same workshop at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. (photo)
